The Power of a Tweet

They say, "Pen is much more powerful then a sword". The ex-IPL commissioner Lalit Modi can certainly testify to that.

A few tweets by Lalit Modi aimed at getting even with the now former Indian Union Minister Shashi Tharoor have spectacularly backfired and have exposed the shady dealing in the IPL that include bid rigging, nepotism, tax evasion, black money, bribes and even the dreaded match fixing. The collateral damage in all of this is the IPL and the entire Indian cricket establishment.

Just to give some perspective, MTI Worldwide valued each of the brands at above $10mil in 2009. And I am pretty sure it is much much more in 2010 considering that the two new additions to the IPL paid a whopping $735mil. This is huge considering that IPL did not even exist 3 years ago.

Its rather ironic, that the same social media (Twitter) that Lalit Modi used to build the IPL brand that made him the most powerful man in world cricket, may have contributed to his downfall.

Check out the tweets of Lalit Modi that led to the IPL controversy.

Shashi Tharoor on Soft Power

Be it his tweets about cattle class or his ongoing row over the IPL franchise, since Shashi Tharoor has joined politics in India, controversy and him seem to be inseparable.

Despite of all the recent bad press, Shashi Tharoor is an extremely articulate and accomplished speaker. See his talk on TEDIndia, the rise of India through its soft power.

Random Musings of The Week

Some interesting and informative articles about the news,views and reviews.

A recent ruling by a US federal court could have a significant impact on Network Neutrality. This MSNBC article is a good primer on what "Network neutrality" is, and the what the recent ruling by the federal court means for people like me who live by the internet.
New Yorker magazine article on how American States may be headed the Greek Way towards a financial meltdown.

Check out my other Random Musing posts 1,2,3,4, 5

Google Goes to Kansas

If you are a regular Google user like me, yesterday (April 1st) Google on its website had "Topeka" listed instead of the omnipresent words "Google".



Turns out Google was making fools out of us (Aprils fools day) as well as recognizing the town of Topeka, Kansas for changing the town name to Google.

The irony is that I had to use Google to find where Topeka is. Oh I am sorry, I had to use Topeka to find where Google is.